Once over, I would've bought the ticket, and then not gone because of pathologically avoidant behaviour.

This time, i'm still ill, and just can't be f*cking arsed.

Y'know, get to Darlington train station. Then get the train to Middlesbrough. Then get to the venue. Then sit through it all. Then get back home again. Nah, not tonight.

When i'm feeling like this, i'd much rather be at home with a nice glass of wine or two. Which is exactly what i'm doing.

I dunno . . . maybe i'm kidding myself, and it's still just avoidant behaviour. But I don't think so. And when i'm feeling better, i'm sure i'll go to another live show in the near future.

In other news:

I used to be a huge Beatles fan (they're probably my joint favourite band along with the Manics). And I was always sort of familiar with Lennon and McCartney's solo stuff. I mean, who doesn't know Imagine, Maybe I'm Amazed, Front Parlour and Meat City?

But i'm thinking of listening to it intensively. At least the 70s period stuff.

And there isn't actually that much of it, surprisingly enough. John Lennon didn't release anything between 1975-1980, and McCartney was mostly playing with Wings. Which is sort of McCartney 'solo', but not really.

I mean . . . I was once talking to this other big Beatles fan, circa 2005 on the old Manics.co.uk forum. I told him i'd been listening to McCartney's solo material, and he was like 'LOL, why?'.

So f*cking . . . what? McCartney was this major musical genius between 1962 and 1970, but for some strange reason, as soon as The Beatles broke up, the talent he had just drained from his body?

That was basically his logic. But there are loads of McCartney solo tracks that would grace any Beatles album. Waterfalls (which inspired the equally brilliant TLC track), Back Seat of My Car, Eat at Home, and if you want to include Wings stuff, Jet, Band on the Run, Live and Let Die, and so on. And if he hadn't for his own reasons recorded it in the style of Alvin and the Chipmunks, Coming Up as well.

Personally, I think it was down to the fact that The Beatles are still kind of hipsterish with the critics, in a way McCartney solo isn't (at least not always - he goes through periods of being fashionable). Just shallow and image conscious.

To back that reading up, he also once said he didn't like The Doors, advising that the critics of the late 60s didn't take them seriously at all.

Well, okay. Let's just accept that's even true (which is debatable). How do *you* feel about them, and do you ordinarily let other people - 'critics' - decide your tastes for you?

Sadly, I think this guy did.

And finally:

Had a battered sausage and large chips for tea tonight. Been trying to lose weight over the last few months, and have. But man, that was lovely*.

*Man, we was Lonely by Paul McCartney.